1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of controlling the supply of electrical power to a peripheral device in a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The growth of computer use has created an increasing demand for flexible, high availability devices to store data for computers. Many enterprises have a multiplicity of host computers including personal computers, workstations, and servers that either function independently or are connected through a network. It is desirable for the multiple host computers to be able to access a common pool of data storage so that data can be accessed by all of the host computers. Such an arrangement increases the total amount of data available to any one host computer.
Data storage devices of these systems may be situated at remote locations to free up space near the computer hosts and/or to protect backup data. When not needed for use, however, the data storage devices are inconvenient to manually power down at the remote location.
Remote power control has been implemented, but with use of dedicated power control lines extending long distances from a host computer to the peripheral device. Remote power control has also been implemented using power up/down commands from the host, requiring complex software at the host and complex command interpreters at the peripheral.
Accordingly, there is an existing need for a remote and automatic power control apparatus for a computer system, and more particularly an apparatus that overcomes the deficiencies of conventional power control.